Perhaps one of the most remembered scenes in the 1997 film Titanic was this one below:

As you see at the beginning of the clip, the group of musicians, having gone above and beyond the call of duty, finally decide they can now face the crisis at hand with their honor intact—yet when the leader of the quartet chooses to uphold his charge, even to the point of death, the rest turn back and decide to join him. While they play an old Christian hymn (the same one said to have actually been played as the ship sank), we see the other characters who’ve accepted the same fate, many out of a sense of duty: the captain going down with his ship; the vessel’s designer who won’t exploit his position to escape; the rich older couple living out their marital vows and only allowing death to part them, etc.

Of course it is a very emotional scene, because it beautifully depicts values that are objectively good and precious; simply put, it portrays people living out Judeo-Christian morality of the traditional West.

And, as reported by James Morrow at The Daily Telegraph today, Australian billionaire Clive Palmer recently re-announced his commitment to bring the Titanic II to market (per Morrow, Palmer has had this vision since at least 2013), largely because Palmer desires to promote a “return to the values that we’ve stood for in the West,” or, like mentioned above, the moral precepts of a Judeo-Christian culture; he also noted that the project is meant to bring hope to a dark world. Per Morrow:

The ship will be ‘a statement of values,’ Palmer reiterated.

While this second Titanic will be built to the highest safety standards, Palmer said the original Titanic resonated in time because the story embodied ‘courage, resilience, service.’

‘I think they’re the things we’re missing today … we remember the musicians who played Nearer My God To Thee as the ship sunk.’

‘What was important for people was not saving themselves, but serving others.’

Now, when you’re instilled with Judeo-Christian principles, either because a faith instructs you or because you’re a product of a culture steeped in those precepts, you typically act in a way that is consistent with these beliefs—denying self and serving others is the entire moral basis of the West, which is why values like duty, honor, self-sacrifice, brotherhood, etc., have been so prevalent. Men making their last stand at the Alamo; “women and children first” attitudes; men jumping off the boats in Normandy to be sawn in half by German machine gun fire so others might live freely. (Of course, cataloging an accurate and exhaustive list of Westerners’ heroic and sacrificial deeds could never be finished.)

Yet, a rejection of that moral basis means an orientation to self, and all that is objectively bad, which is exactly what Palmer is describing when he talks about all that’s wrong with the world now—the shift to the political left and all that always accompanies it: the repudiation of the West and its values, and the subsequent embrace of atheism, nihilism, and narcissism.

From the Australian Associated Press:

‘In these final stages of my life - I turn 70 this year - it’s something that I can perhaps do in a positive manner for the people of the world,’ Mr Palmer said.

What a difference “political opinions” make when billionaires seek to leave a mark on the world.

Hat tip: John McMahon, Kolonga, Qld Australia.

Image: YouTube video screengrab.